The first movie to have a musical score for an orchestra and required an intermission to switch reels.
It pioneered close-ups, fade-outs, and a carefully staged battle sequence with hundreds of extras (another first) made to look like thousands. It came with a 13-page “Souvenir Program”. It was the first American motion picture to be screened in the White House, viewed there by President Woodrow Wilson.
There were widespread protests even when the movie came out and the NAACP tried unsuccessfully to have the film banned.
Selected by The Library of Congress in 1992 for preservation in the National Film Registry.
The author Dixon claimed he would let none other than the son of a Confederate soldier direct an adaptation of The Clansman.
The film focuses on two families, one from the Union and one from the Confederacy. It frames the Southerners as good people fighting a losing battle and attempts to rewrite history. Although the South still loses, the second half of the movie focuses on the Reconstruction period.
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